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Ramabriga
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 Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:19 pm Post subject: Astronomy in the Quran |
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Astronomy in the Quran
The Quran is full of reflections on the Heavens. In the preceding chapter on the Creation, we
saw how the plurality of the Heavens and Earths was referred to, as well as what the Quran
calls an intermediary creation 'between the Heavens and the Earth', modern science has verified
the latter. The verses referring to the Creation already contain a broad idea of what is to be
found in the heavens, i.e. of everything outside the earth.
Apart from the verses that specifically describe the Creation, there are roughly another forty
verses in the Quran which provide information on astronomy complementing what has already been
given. Some of them are not much more than reflections on the glory of the Creator, the
Organizer of all the stellar and planetary systems. These we know to be arranged according to
balancing positions whose stability Newton explained in his law of the mutual attraction of bodies.
The first verses to be quoted here hardly furnish much material for scientific analysis: the
aim is simply to draw attention to God's Omnipotence. They must be mentioned however to give a
realistic idea of the way the Quranic text described the organization of the Universe fourteen
centuries ago.
These references constitute a new fact of divine Revelation. The organization of the world is
treated in neither the Gospels nor the Old Testament (except for a few notions whose general
inaccuracy we have already seen in the Biblical description of the Creation). The Quran however
deals with this subject in depth. What it describes is important, but so is what it does not
contain. It does not in fact provide an account of the theories prevalent at the time of the
Revelation that deal with the organization of the celestial world, theories that science was
later to show were inaccurate. An example of this will be given later. This negative
consideration must however be pointed out. [ I have often heard those who go to great lengths
to find a human explanation-and no other-to all the problems raised by the Quran Bay the
following: "if the Book contains surprising statements on astronomy, it is because the Arabs
were very knowledgeable on this subject." In so doing they forget the fact that, in general,
science in Islamic countries is very much post-Quran, and that the scientific knowledge of this
great period would in any case not have been sufficient for a human being to write some of the
verses to be found in the Quran. This will be shown in the following paragraphs.]
A. GENERAL REFLECTIONS CONCERNING THE SKY
--sura 50, verse 6. The subject is man in general.
"Do they not look at the sky above them, how We have built it and adorned it, and there are no
rifts in it."
--sura 31, verse 10:
"(God) created the heavens without any pillars that you can see..."
--sura 13, verse 2:
"God is the One Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see, then He firmly
established Himself on the throne and He subjected the sun and moon . . ."
These two verses refute the belief that the vault of the heavens was held up by pillars, the
only things preventing the former from crushing the earth.
--sura 55, verse 7:
"the sky (God) raised it . . ."
--sura 22, verse 65:
"(God) holds back the sky from falling on the earth unless by His leave . . ."
It is known how the remoteness of celestial masses at great distance and in proportion to the
magnitude of their mass itself constitutes the foundation of their equilibrium. The more remote
the masses are, the weaker the force is that attracts one to the other. The nearer they are,
the stronger the attraction is that one has to the other: this is true for the Moon, which is
near to the Earth (astronomically speaking) and exercises an influence by laws of attraction on
the position occupied by the waters of the sea, hence the phenomenon of the tides. If two
celestial bodies come too close to one another, collision is inevitable. The fact that they are
subjected to an order is the sine qua non for the absence of disturbances.
The subjection of the Heavens to divine order is often referred to as well:
--sura 23, verse 86. God is speaking to the Prophet.
"Say: Who is Lord of the seven heavens and Lord of the tremendous throne?"
We have already seen how by 'seven heavens' what is meant is not 7, but an indefinite number of
Heavens.
--sura 45, verse 13:
"For you (God) subjected all that is in the heavens and on the earth, all from Him. Behold! In
that are signs for people who reflect."
--sura 55, verse 5:
"The sun and moon (are subjected) to calculations"
--sura 6, verse 96:
"(God) appointed the night for rest and the sun and the moon for reckoning."
--sura 14, verse 33:
"For you (God) subjected the sun and the moon, both diligently pursuing their courses. And for
you He subjected the night and the day."
Here one verse completes another: the calculations referred to result in the regularity of the
course described by the heavenly bodies in question, this is expressed by the word da'ib, the
present participle of a verb whose original meaning was 'to work eagerly and assiduously at
something'. Here it is given the meaning of 'to apply oneself to something with care in a
perseverant, invariable manner, in accordance with set habits'.
--sura 36, verse 39: God is speaking:
"And for the moon We have appointed mansions till she returns like an old shriveled palm branch."
This is a reference to the curled form of the palm branch which, as it shrivels up, takes on
the moon's crescent. This commentary will be completed later.
--sura 16, verse 12:
"For you (God) subjected the night and the day, the sun and the moon; the stars are in
subjection to His Command. Verily in this are signs for people who are wise."
The practical angle from which this perfect celestial order is seen is underlined on account of
its value as an aid to man's travel on earth and by sea, and to his calculation of time. This
comment becomes clear when one bears in mind the fact that the Quran was originally a preaching
addressed to men who only understood the simple language of their everyday lives. This explains
the presence of the following reflections.
--sura 6, verse 97:
"(God) is the One Who has set out for you the stars, that you may guide yourselves by them
through the darkness of the land and of the sea. We have detailed the signs for people who know."
--sura 16, verse 16:
"(God sets on the earth) landmarks and by the stars (men) guide themselves."
--sura 10, verse 5:
"God is the One Who made the sun a shining glory and the moon a light and for her ordained
mansions, so that you might know the number of years and the reckoning (of the time). God
created this in truth. He explains the signs in detail for people who know."
This calls for some comment. Whereas the Bible calls the Sun and Moon 'lights', and merely adds
to one the adjective 'greater' and to the other 'lesser', the Quran ascribes differences other
than that of dimension to each respectively. Agreed, this is nothing more than a verbal
distinction, but how was one to communicate to men at this time without confusing them, while
at the same time expressing the notion that the Sun and Moon were not absolutely identical
'lights'?
B. NATURE OF HEAVENLY BODIES
The Sun and the Moon
The Sun is a shining glory (diya') and the Moon a light (nur). This translation would appear to
be more correct than those given by others, where the two terms are inverted. In fact there is
little difference in meaning since diya' belongs to a root (dw') which, according to
Kazimirski's authoritative Arabic/French dictionary, means 'to be bright, to shine' (e.g. like
a fire). The same author attributes to the substantive in question the meaning of 'light'.
The difference between Sun and Moon will be made clearer by further quotes from the Quran.
--sura 25, verse 61:
"Blessed is the One Who placed the constellations in heaven and placed therein a lamp and a
moon giving light."
--sura 71, 15-16:
"Did you see how God created seven heavens one above an other and made the moon a light therein
and made the sun a lamp?"
--sura 78, verses 12-13:
"We have built above you seven strong (heavens) and placed a blazing lamp."
The blazing lamp is quite obviously the sun.
Here the moon is defined as a body that gives light (munir) from the same root as nur (the
light applied to the Moon). The Sun however is compared to a torch (siraj) or a blazing
(wahhaj) lamp.
A man of Muhammad's time could easily distinguish between the Sun, a blazing heavenly body well
known to the inhabitants of the desert, and the Moon, the body of the cool of the night. The
comparisons found in the Quran on this subject are therefore quite normal. What is interesting
to note here is the sober quality of the comparisons, and the absence in the text of the Quran
of any elements of comparison that might have prevailed at the time and which in our day would
appear as phantasmagorial.
It is known that the Sun is a star that generates intense heat and light by its internal
combustions, and that the Moon, which does not give of flight itself, and is an inert body (on
its external layers at least) merely reflects the light received from the Sun.
There is nothing in the text of the Quran that contradicts what we know today about these two
celestial bodies.
Read whole book
http://www.islam-guide.com/bqs/
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com ** |
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Chom Noamsky
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject: Re: Astronomy in the Quran |
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"Ramabriga" <Ramabriga@gmail.com> wrote in message:
| Quote: |
There is nothing in the text of the Quran that contradicts what we know
today about these two
celestial bodies.
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There is nothing in the Quran that isn't based on common observation. |
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Peter Webb
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:37 am Post subject: Re: Astronomy in the Quran |
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<SNIP>
| Quote: |
There is nothing in the text of the Quran that contradicts what we know
today about these two
celestial bodies.
|
And if any more proof is needed that the Koran is divinely inspired, there
is nothing in it which contradicts the General Theory of Relativity or the
Standard Model of Physics, either. |
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Ramabriga
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:56 am Post subject: Re: Astronomy in the Quran |
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Peter Webb wrote:
| Quote: |
SNIP
There is nothing in the text of the Quran that contradicts what we
know today about these two
celestial bodies.
And if any more proof is needed that the Koran is divinely inspired,
there is nothing in it which contradicts the General Theory of
Relativity or the Standard Model of Physics, either.
|
http://www.islam-guide.com/bqs/17astronomy.htm#D.%20EVOLUTION%20OF%20THE%20HEAVENS
The Existence of the Moon's and the Sun's Orbits
The Arabic word falak has here been translated by the word 'orbit'. many French translators of
the Quran attach to it the meaning of a 'sphere'. This is indeed its initial sense. Hamidullah
translates it by the word 'orbit'.
The word caused concern to older translators of the Quran who were unable to imagine the
circular course of the Moon and the Sun and therefore retained images of their course through
space that were either more or less correct, or hopelessly wrong. Sir Hamza Boubekeur in his
translation of the Quran cites the diversity of interpretations given to it: "A sort of axle,
like an iron rod, that a mill turns around; a celestial sphere, orbit, sign of the zodiac,
speed, wave . . .", but he adds the following observation made by Tabari, the famous Tenth
century commentator: "It is our duty to keep silent when we do not know." (XVII, 15). This
shows just how incapable men were of understanding this concept of the Sun's and Moon's orbit.
It is obvious that if the word had expressed an astronomical concept common in Muhammad's day,
it would not have been so difficult to interpret these verses. A Dew concept therefore existed
in the Quran that was not to be explained until centuries later.
1. The Moon's Orbit
Today, the concept is widely spread that the Moon is a satellite of the Earth around which it
revolves in periods of twenty-nine days. A correction must however be made to the absolutely
circular form of its orbit, since modern astronomy ascribes a certain eccentricity to this, so
that the distance between the Earth and the Moon (240,000 miles) is only the average distance.
We have seen above how the Quran underlined the usefulness of observing the Moon's movements in
calculating time (sura 10, verse 5, quoted at the beginning of this chapter.) This system has
often been criticized for being archaic, impractical and unscientific in comparison to our
system based on the Earth's rotation around the Sun, expressed today in the Julian calendar.
This criticism calls for the following two remarks:
a) Nearly fourteen centuries ago, the Quran was directed at the inhabitants of the Arabian
Peninsula who were used to the lunar calculation of time. It was advisable to address them in
the only language they could understand and not to upset the habits they had of locating
spatial and temporal reference-marks which were nevertheless quite efficient. It is known how
well-versed men living in the desert are in the observation of the sky. they navigated
according to the stars and told the time according to the phases of the Moon. Those were the
simplest and most reliable means available to them.
b) Apart from the specialists in this field, most people are unaware of the perfect correlation
between the Julian and the lunar calendar: 235 lunar months correspond exactly to 19 Julian
years of 365 1/4 days. Then length of our year of 365 days is not perfect because it has to be
rectified every four years (with a leap year) .
With the lunar calendar, the same phenomena occur every 19 years (Julian). This is the Metonic
cycle, named after the Greek astronomer Meton, who discovered this exact correlation between
solar and lunar time in the Fifth century B.C.
2. The Sun
It is more difficult to conceive of the Sun's orbit because we are so used to seeing our solar
system organized around it. To understand the verse from the Quran, the position of the Sun in
our galaxy must be considered, and we must therefore call on modern scientific ideas.
Our galaxy includes a very large number of stars spaced so as to form a disc that is denser at
the centre than at the rim. The Sun occupies a position in it which is far removed from the
centre of the disc. The galaxy revolves on its own axis which is its centre with the result
that the Sun revolves around the same centre in a circular orbit. Modern astronomy has worked
out the details of this. In 1917, Shapley estimated the distance between the Sun and the centre
of our galaxy at 10 kiloparsecs i.e., in miles, circa the figure 2 followed by 17 zeros. To
complete one revolution on its own axis, the galaxy and Sun take roughly 250 million years. The
Sun travels at roughly 150 miles per second in the completion of this.
The above is the orbital movement of the Sun that was already referred to by the Quran fourteen
centuries ago. The demonstration of the existence and details of this is one of the
achievements of modern astronomy.
Reference to the Movement of the Moon and the Sun in Space With Their Own Motion
This concept does not appear in those translations of the Quran that have been made by men of
letters. Since the latter know nothing about astronomy, they have translated the Arabic word
that expresses this movement by one of the meanings the word has: 'to swim'. They have done
this in both the French translations and the, otherwise remarkable, English translation by
Yusuf Ali. [ Pub. Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore (Pakistan)]
The Arabic word referring to a movement with a self-propelled motion is the verb sabaha
(yasbahuna in the text of the two verses). All the senses of the verb imply a movement that is
associated with a motion that comes from the body in question. If the movement takes place in
water, it is 'to swim'; it is 'to move by the action of one's own legs' if it takes place on
land. For a movement that occurs in space, it is difficult to see how else this meaning implied
in the word could be rendered other than by employing its original sense. Thus there seems to
have been no mistranslation, for the following reasons.
-The Moon completes its rotating motion on its own axis at the same time as it revolves around
the Earth, i.e. 291/2 days (approx.), so that it always has the same side facing us.
-The Sun takes roughly 25 days to revolve on its own axis. There are certain differences in its
rotation at its equator and poles, (we shall not go into them here) but as a whole, the Sun is
animated by a rotating motion.
It appears therefore that a verbal nuance in the Quran refers to the Sun and Moon's own motion.
These motions of the two celestial bodies are confirmed by the data of modern science, and it
is inconceivable that a man living in the Seventh century A.D.-however knowledgeable he might
have been in his day (and this was certainly not true in Muhammad's case) -could have imagined
them.
This view is sometimes contested by examples from great thinkers of antiquity who indisputably
predicted certain data that modern science has verified. They could hardly have relied on
scientific deduction however; their method of procedure was more one of philosophical
reasoning. Thus the case of the pythagoreans is often advanced. In the Sixth century B.C., they
defended the theory of the rotation of the Earth on its own axis and the movement of the
planets around the Sun. This theory was to be confirmed by modern science. By comparing it with
the case of the Pythagoreans, it is easy to put forward the hypothesis of Muhammad as being a
brilliant thinker, who was supposed to have imagined all on his own what modern science was to
discover centuries later. In so doing however, people quite simply forget to mention the other
aspect of what these geniuses of philosophical reasoning produced, i.e. the colossal blunders
that litter their work. It must be remembered for example, that the Pythagoreans also defended
the theory whereby the Sun was fixed in space; they made it the centre of the world and only
conceived of a celestial order that was centered on it. It is quite common in the works of the
great philosophers of antiquity to find a mixture of valid and invalid ideas about the
Universe. The brilliance of these human works comes from the advanced ideas they contain, but
they should not make us overlook the mistaken concepts which have also been left to us. From a
strictly scientific point of view, this is what distinguished them from the Quran. In the
latter, many subjects are referred to that have a bearing on modern knowledge without one of
them containing a statement that contradicts what has been established by present-day science.
The Sequence of Day and Night
At a time when it was held that the Earth was the centre of the world and that the Sun moved in
relation to it, how could any one have failed to refer to the Sun's movement when talking of
the sequence of night and day? This is not however referred to in the Quran and the subject is
dealt with as follows:
--sura 7, verse 54:
"(God) covers the day with the night which is in haste to follow it . . ."
--sura 36, verse 37:
"And a sign for them (human beings) is the night. We strip it of the day and they are in darkness."
--sura 31, verse 29:
"Hast thou not seen how God merges the night into the day and merges the day into the night."
--sura 39, verse 5:
". . . He coils the night upon the day and He coils the day upon the night."
The first verse cited requires no comment. The second simply provides an image.
It is mainly the third and fourth verses quoted above that provide interesting material on the
process of interpenetration and especially of winding the night upon the day and the day upon
the night. (sura 39, verse 5)
'To coil' or 'to wind' seems, as in the French translation by R. Blachère, to be the best way
of translating the Arabic verb kawwara. The original meaning of the verb is to 'coil' a turban
around the head; the notion of coiling is preserved in all the other senses of the word.
What actually happens however in space? American astronauts have seen and photographed what
happens from their spaceships, especially at a great distance from Earth, e.g. from the Moon.
They saw how the Sun permanently lights up (except in the case of an eclipse) the half of the
Earth's surface that is facing it, while the other half of the globe is in darkness. The Earth
turns on its own axis and the lighting remains the same, so that an area in the form of a
half-sphere makes one revolution around the Earth in twenty-four hours while the other
half-sphere, that has remained in darkness, makes the same revolution in the same time. This
perpetual rotation of night and day is quite clearly described in the Quran. It is easy for the
human understanding to grasp this notion nowadays because we have the idea of the Sun's
(relative) immobility and the Earth's rotation. This process of perpetual coiling, including
the interpenetration of one sector by another is expressed in the Quran just as if the concept
of the Earth's roundness had already been conceived at the time-which was obviously not the case.
Further to the above reflections on the sequence of day and night, one must also mention, with
a quotation of some verses from the Quran, the idea that there is more than one Orient and one
Occident. This is of purely descriptive interest because these phenomena rely on the most
commonplace observations. The idea is mentioned here with the aim of reproducing as faithfully
as possible all that the Quran has to say on this subject.
The following are examples:
--In sura 70 verse 40, the expression 'Lord of Orients and Occidents'.
--In sura 55, verse 17, the expression 'Lord of the two Orients and the two Occidents'.
--In sura 43, verse 38, a reference to the 'distance between the two Orients', an image
intended to express the immense size of the distance separating the two points.
Anyone who carefully watches the sunrise and sunset knows that the Sun rises at different point
of the Orient and sets at different points of the Occident, according to season. Bearings taken
on each of the horizons define the extreme limits that mark the two Orients and Occidents, and
between these there are points marked off throughout the year. The phenomenon described here is
rather commonplace, but what mainly deserves attention in this chapter are the other. topics
dealt with, where the description of astronomical phenomena referred to in the Quran is in
keeping with modern data.
D. EVOLUTION OF THE HEAVENS
Having called modern concepts on the formation of the Universe to mind, reference was made to
the evolution that took place, starting with primary nebula through to the formation of
galaxies, stars and (for the solar system) the appearance of planets beginning with the Sun at
a certain stage of its evolution. Modern data lead us to believe that in the solar system, and
more generally in the Universe itself, this evolution is still continuing.
How can anybody who is aware of these ideas fail to make a comparison with certain statements
found in the Quran in which the manifestations of divine Omnipotence are referred to.
The Quran reminds us several times that: "(God) subjected the sun and the moon: each one runs
its course to an appointed term."
This sentence is to be found in sura 13, verse 2. sura 31, verse 29; sura 35, verse 13 and sura
39, verse 5.
In addition to this, the idea of a settled place is associated with the concept of a
destination place in sura 36, verse 38: "The Sun runs its course to a settled place. This is
the decree of the All Mighty, the Full of Knowledge."
'Settled place' is the translation of the word mustaqarr and there can be no doubt that the
idea of an exact place is attached to it.
How do these statements fare when compared with data established by modern science?
The Quran gives an end to the Sun for its evolution and a destination place. It also provides
the Moon with a settled place. To understand the possible meanings of these statements, we must
remember what modern knowledge has to say about the evolution of the stars in general and the
Sun in particular, and (by extension) the celestial bodies that automatically followed its
movement through space, among them the Moon.
The Sun is a star that is roughly 4½ billion years old, according to experts in astrophysics.
It is possible to distinguish a stage in its evolution, as one can for all the stars. At
present, the Sun is at an early stage, characterized by the transformation of hydrogen atoms
into helium atoms. Theoretically, this present stage should last another 5½ billion years
according to calculations that allow a total of 10 billion years for the duration of the
primary stage in a star of this kind. It has already been shown, in the case of these other
stars, that this stage gives way to a second period characterized by the completion of the
transformation of hydrogen into helium, with the resulting expansion of its external layers and
the cooling of the Sun. In the final stage, its light is greatly diminished and density
considerably increased; this is to be observed in the type of star known as a 'white dwarf'.
The above dates are only of interest in as far as they give a rough estimate of the time factor
involved, what is worth remembering and is really the main point of the above, is the notion of
an evolution. Modern data allow us to predict that, in a few billion years, the conditions
prevailing in the solar system will not be the same as they are today. Like other stars whose
transformations have been recorded until they reached their final stage, it is possible to
predict an end to the Sun.
The second verse quoted above (sur'a 36, verse 3 referred to the Sun running its course
towards a place of its own.
Modern astronomy has been able to locate it exactly and has even given it a name, the Solar.
Apex: the solar. system is indeed evolving in space towards a point situated in the
Constellation of Hercules (alpha lyrae) whose exact location is firmly established; it is
moving at a speed already ascertained at something in the region of 12 miles per. second.
All these astronomical data deserve to be mentioned in relation to the two verses from the
Quran, since it is possible to state that they appear to agree perfectly with modern scientific
data.
The Expansion of the Universe
The expansion of the Universe is the most imposing discovery of modern science. Today it is a
firmly established concept and the only debate centres around the way this is taking place.
It was first suggested by the general theory of relativity and is backed up by physics in the
examination of the galactic spectrum; the regular movement towards the red section of their
spectrum may be explained by the distancing of one galaxy from another. Thus the size of the
Universe is probably constantly increasing and this increase will become bigger the further
away the galaxies are from us. The speeds at which these celestial bodies are moving may, in
the course of this perpetual expansion, go from fractions of the speed of light to speeds
faster than this.
The following verse of the Qur' an (sura 51, verse 47) where God is speaking, may perhaps be
compared with modern ideas:
"The heaven, We have built it with power. Verily. We are expanding it."
'Heaven' is the translation of the word sama' and this is exactly the extra-terrestrial world
that is meant.
'We are expanding it' is the translation of the plural present participle musi'una of the verb
ausa'a meaning 'to make wider, more spacious, to extend, to expand'.
Some translators who were unable to grasp the meaning of the latter provide translations that
appear to me to be mistaken, e.g. "we give generously" (R. Blachère). Others sense the meaning,
but are afraid to commit themselves: Hamidullah in his translation of the Quran talks of the
widening of the heavens and space, but he includes a question mark. Finally, there are those
who arm themselves with authorized scientific opinion in their commentaries and give the
meaning stated here. This is true in the case of the Muntakab, a book of commentaries edited by
the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Cairo. It refers to the expansion of the Universe in
totally unambiguous terms.
E. THE CONQUEST OF SPACE
From this point of view, three verses of the Quran should command our full attention. One
expresses, without any trace of ambiguity, what man should and will achieve in this field. In
the other two, God refers for the sake of the unbelievers in Makka to the surprise they would
have if they were able to raise themselves up to the Heavens; He alludes to a hypothesis which
will not be realized for the latter.
1) The first of these verses is sura 55, verse 33: "O assembly of Jinns and Men, if you can
penetrate regions of the heavens and the earth, then penetrate them! You will not penetrate
them save with a Power." [ This verse is followed by an invitation to recognize God's
blessings. It forms the subject of the whole of the sura that bears the title 'The Beneficent'.]
The translation given here needs some explanatory comment:
a) The word 'if' expresses in English a condition that is dependant upon a possibility and
either an achievable or an unachievable hypothesis. Arabic is a language which is able to
introduce a nuance into the condition which is much more explicit. There is one word to express
the possibility (ida), another for the achievable hypothesis (in) and a third for the
unachievable hypothesis expressed by the word (lau). The verse in question has it as an
achievable hypothesis expressed by the word (in). The Quran therefore suggests the material
possibility of a concrete realization. This subtle linguistic distinction formally rules out
the purely mystic interpretation that some people have (quite wrongly) put on this verse.
b) God is addressing the spirits (jinn) and human beings (ins), and not essentially allegorical
figures.
c) 'To penetrate' is the translation of the verb nafada followed by the preposition min.
According to Kazimirski's dictionary, the phrase means 'to pass right through and come out on
the other side of a body' (e.g. an arrow that comes out on the other side). It therefore
suggests a deep penetration and emergence at the other end into the regions in question.
d) The Power (sultan) these men will have to achieve this enterprise would seem to come from
the All-Mighty.
There can be no doubt that this verse indicates the possibility men will one day achieve what
we today call (perhaps rather improperly) 'the conquest of space'. One must note that the text
of the Quran predicts not only penetration through the regions of the Heavens, but also the
Earth, i.e. the exploration of its depths.
2) The other two verses are taken from sura 15, (verses14 and 15). God is speaking of the
unbelievers in Makka, as the context of this passage in the sura shows:
"Even if We opened unto them a gate to Heaven and they were to continue ascending therein, they
would say. our sight is confused as in drunkenness. Nay, we are people bewitched."
The above expresses astonishment at a remarkable spectacle, different from anything man could
imagine.
The conditional sentence is introduced here by the word lau which expresses a hypothesis that
could never be realized as far as it concerned the people mentioned in these verses.
When talking of the conquest of space therefore, we have two passages in the text of the Quran:
one of them refers to what will one day become a reality thanks to the powers of intelligence
and ingenuity God will give to man, and the other describes an event that the unbelievers in
Makka will never witness, hence its character of a condition never to be realized. The event
will however be seen by others, as intimated in the first verse quoted above. It describes the
human reactions to the unexpected spectacle that travellers in space will see. their confused
sight, as in drunkenness, the feeling of being bewitched . . .
This is exactly how astronauts have experienced this remarkable adventure since the first human
spaceflight around the world in 1961. It is known in actual fact how once one is above the
Earth's atmosphere, the Heavens no longer have the azure appearance we see from Earth, which
results from phenomena of absorption of the Sun's light into the layers of the atmosphere. The
human observer in space above the Earth's atmosphere sees a black sky and the Earth seems to be
surrounded by a halo of bluish colour due to the same phenomena of absorption of light by the
Earth's atmosphere. The Moon has no atmosphere, however, and therefore appears in its true
colors against the black background of the sky. It is a completely new spectacle therefore that
presents itself to men in space, and the photographs of this spectacle are well known to
present-day man.
Here again, it is difficult not to be impressed, when comparing the text of the Quran to the
data of modern science, by statements that simply cannot be ascribed to the thought of a man
who lived more than fourteen centuries ago.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com ** |
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:28 pm Post subject: Re: Astronomy in the Quran |
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On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:19:58 -0500, Ramabriga <Ramabriga@gmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
Astronomy in the Quran
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1) Allah is Satan.
2) Satan found an unemployed drunk pedophile sitting in the desert
with his balls in the dirt masturbating. His name was Mohammad. Satan
persuaded him to start a new cult called Islam.
3) Islam is an evil-inspired destructive cult.
4) Muslims are servants of the Devil.
5) I wipe my ass with pages torn from your Quran. |
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Peter Webb
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 6:39 pm Post subject: Re: Astronomy in the Quran |
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"Ramabriga" <Ramabriga@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:d9657$485dbf77$30125@news.teranews.com...
| Quote: |
Peter Webb wrote:
SNIP
There is nothing in the text of the Quran that contradicts what we know
today about these two
celestial bodies.
And if any more proof is needed that the Koran is divinely inspired,
there is nothing in it which contradicts the General Theory of Relativity
or the Standard Model of Physics, either.
http://www.islam-guide.com/bqs/17astronomy.htm#D.%20EVOLUTION%20OF%20THE%20HEAVENS
The Existence of the Moon's and the Sun's Orbits
The Arabic word falak has here been translated by the word 'orbit'. many
French translators of the Quran attach to it the meaning of a 'sphere'.
This is indeed its initial sense. Hamidullah translates it by the word
'orbit'.
The word caused concern to older translators of the Quran who were unable
to imagine the circular course of the Moon and the Sun and therefore
retained images of their course through space that were either more or
less correct, or hopelessly wrong. Sir Hamza Boubekeur in his translation
of the Quran cites the diversity of interpretations given to it: "A sort
of axle, like an iron rod, that a mill turns around; a celestial sphere,
orbit, sign of the zodiac, speed, wave . . .", but he adds the following
observation made by Tabari, the famous Tenth century commentator: "It is
our duty to keep silent when we do not know." (XVII, 15). This shows just
how incapable men were of understanding this concept of the Sun's and
Moon's orbit. It is obvious that if the word had expressed an astronomical
concept common in Muhammad's day, it would not have been so difficult to
interpret these verses. A Dew concept therefore existed in the Quran that
was not to be explained until centuries later.
1. The Moon's Orbit
Today, the concept is widely spread that the Moon is a satellite of the
Earth around which it revolves in periods of twenty-nine days. A
correction must however be made to the absolutely circular form of its
orbit, since modern astronomy ascribes a certain eccentricity to this, so
that the distance between the Earth and the Moon (240,000 miles) is only
the average distance.
We have seen above how the Quran underlined the usefulness of observing
the Moon's movements in calculating time (sura 10, verse 5, quoted at the
beginning of this chapter.) This system has often been criticized for
being archaic, impractical and unscientific in comparison to our system
based on the Earth's rotation around the Sun, expressed today in the
Julian calendar.
This criticism calls for the following two remarks:
a) Nearly fourteen centuries ago, the Quran was directed at the
inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula who were used to the lunar
calculation of time. It was advisable to address them in the only language
they could understand and not to upset the habits they had of locating
spatial and temporal reference-marks which were nevertheless quite
efficient. It is known how well-versed men living in the desert are in the
observation of the sky. they navigated according to the stars and told the
time according to the phases of the Moon. Those were the simplest and most
reliable means available to them.
b) Apart from the specialists in this field, most people are unaware of
the perfect correlation between the Julian and the lunar calendar: 235
lunar months correspond exactly to 19 Julian years of 365 1/4 days. Then
length of our year of 365 days is not perfect because it has to be
rectified every four years (with a leap year) .
With the lunar calendar, the same phenomena occur every 19 years (Julian).
This is the Metonic cycle, named after the Greek astronomer Meton, who
discovered this exact correlation between solar and lunar time in the
Fifth century B.C.
2. The Sun
It is more difficult to conceive of the Sun's orbit because we are so used
to seeing our solar system organized around it. To understand the verse
from the Quran, the position of the Sun in our galaxy must be considered,
and we must therefore call on modern scientific ideas.
Our galaxy includes a very large number of stars spaced so as to form a
disc that is denser at the centre than at the rim. The Sun occupies a
position in it which is far removed from the centre of the disc. The
galaxy revolves on its own axis which is its centre with the result that
the Sun revolves around the same centre in a circular orbit. Modern
astronomy has worked out the details of this. In 1917, Shapley estimated
the distance between the Sun and the centre of our galaxy at 10
kiloparsecs i.e., in miles, circa the figure 2 followed by 17 zeros. To
complete one revolution on its own axis, the galaxy and Sun take roughly
250 million years. The Sun travels at roughly 150 miles per second in the
completion of this.
The above is the orbital movement of the Sun that was already referred to
by the Quran fourteen centuries ago. The demonstration of the existence
and details of this is one of the achievements of modern astronomy.
|
But hold it, all the Koran actually said was that the Sun moves, right?
There's no mention of 2 * 10^17 miles, or a period of rotation of 250
million years or any of that in the Koran, is there?
| Quote: |
Reference to the Movement of the Moon and the Sun in Space With Their Own
Motion
This concept does not appear in those translations of the Quran that have
been made by men of letters. Since the latter know nothing about
astronomy, they have translated the Arabic word that expresses this
movement by one of the meanings the word has: 'to swim'. They have done
this in both the French translations and the, otherwise remarkable,
English translation by Yusuf Ali. [ Pub. Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore
(Pakistan)]
The Arabic word referring to a movement with a self-propelled motion is
the verb sabaha (yasbahuna in the text of the two verses). All the senses
of the verb imply a movement that is associated with a motion that comes
from the body in question. If the movement takes place in water, it is 'to
swim'; it is 'to move by the action of one's own legs' if it takes place
on land. For a movement that occurs in space, it is difficult to see how
else this meaning implied in the word could be rendered other than by
employing its original sense. Thus there seems to have been no
mistranslation, for the following reasons.
-The Moon completes its rotating motion on its own axis at the same time
as it revolves around the Earth, i.e. 291/2 days (approx.), so that it
always has the same side facing us.
-The Sun takes roughly 25 days to revolve on its own axis. There are
certain differences in its rotation at its equator and poles, (we shall
not go into them here) but as a whole, the Sun is animated by a rotating
motion.
It appears therefore that a verbal nuance in the Quran refers to the Sun
and Moon's own motion. These motions of the two celestial bodies are
confirmed by the data of modern science, and it is inconceivable that a
man living in the Seventh century A.D.-however knowledgeable he might have
been in his day (and this was certainly not true in Muhammad's
case) -could have imagined them.
This view is sometimes contested by examples from great thinkers of
antiquity who indisputably predicted certain data that modern science has
verified. They could hardly have relied on scientific deduction however;
their method of procedure was more one of philosophical reasoning. Thus
the case of the pythagoreans is often advanced. In the Sixth century B.C.,
they defended the theory of the rotation of the Earth on its own axis and
the movement of the planets around the Sun. This theory was to be
confirmed by modern science. By comparing it with the case of the
Pythagoreans, it is easy to put forward the hypothesis of Muhammad as
being a brilliant thinker, who was supposed to have imagined all on his
own what modern science was to discover centuries later. In so doing
however, people quite simply forget to mention the other aspect of what
these geniuses of philosophical reasoning produced, i.e. the colossal
blunders that litter their work. It must be remembered for example, that
the Pythagoreans also defended the theory whereby the Sun was fixed in
space; they made it the centre of the world and only conceived of a
celestial order that was centered on it. It is quite common in the works
of the great philosophers of antiquity to find a mixture of valid and
invalid ideas about the Universe. The brilliance of these human works
comes from the advanced ideas they contain, but they should not make us
overlook the mistaken concepts which have also been left to us. From a
strictly scientific point of view, this is what distinguished them from
the Quran. In the latter, many subjects are referred to that have a
bearing on modern knowledge without one of them containing a statement
that contradicts what has been established by present-day science.
|
So the claim is still that the Koran says the moon and Sun move, right?
Nothing about the orbital speed of the sun being 25 days? (Which they could
have known even without telescopes, btw, but never found out).
Anybody could tell that by looking out the window, or whatever they had
10,000 years ago.
It doesn't mention Saturn's ring system does it, by any chance?
| Quote: |
The Sequence of Day and Night
At a time when it was held that the Earth was the centre of the world and
that the Sun moved in relation to it, how could any one have failed to
refer to the Sun's movement when talking of the sequence of night and day?
This is not however referred to in the Quran and the subject is dealt with
as follows:
--sura 7, verse 54:
"(God) covers the day with the night which is in haste to follow it . . ."
--sura 36, verse 37:
"And a sign for them (human beings) is the night. We strip it of the day
and they are in darkness."
--sura 31, verse 29:
"Hast thou not seen how God merges the night into the day and merges the
day into the night."
--sura 39, verse 5:
". . . He coils the night upon the day and He coils the day upon the
night."
The first verse cited requires no comment. The second simply provides an
image.
It is mainly the third and fourth verses quoted above that provide
interesting material on the process of interpenetration and especially of
winding the night upon the day and the day upon the night. (sura 39, verse
5)
'To coil' or 'to wind' seems, as in the French translation by R. Blachère,
to be the best way of translating the Arabic verb kawwara. The original
meaning of the verb is to 'coil' a turban around the head; the notion of
coiling is preserved in all the other senses of the word.
What actually happens however in space? American astronauts have seen and
photographed what happens from their spaceships, especially at a great
distance from Earth, e.g. from the Moon. They saw how the Sun permanently
lights up (except in the case of an eclipse) the half of the Earth's
surface that is facing it, while the other half of the globe is in
darkness. The Earth turns on its own axis and the lighting remains the
same, so that an area in the form of a half-sphere makes one revolution
around the Earth in twenty-four hours while the other half-sphere, that
has remained in darkness, makes the same revolution in the same time. This
perpetual rotation of night and day is quite clearly described in the
Quran. It is easy for the human understanding to grasp this notion
nowadays because we have the idea of the Sun's (relative) immobility and
the Earth's rotation. This process of perpetual coiling, including the
interpenetration of one sector by another is expressed in the Quran just
as if the concept of the Earth's roundness had already been conceived at
the time-which was obviously not the case.
Further to the above reflections on the sequence of day and night, one
must also mention, with a quotation of some verses from the Quran, the
idea that there is more than one Orient and one Occident. This is of
purely descriptive interest because these phenomena rely on the most
commonplace observations. The idea is mentioned here with the aim of
reproducing as faithfully as possible all that the Quran has to say on
this subject.
The following are examples:
--In sura 70 verse 40, the expression 'Lord of Orients and Occidents'.
--In sura 55, verse 17, the expression 'Lord of the two Orients and the
two Occidents'.
--In sura 43, verse 38, a reference to the 'distance between the two
Orients', an image intended to express the immense size of the distance
separating the two points.
Anyone who carefully watches the sunrise and sunset knows that the Sun
rises at different point of the Orient and sets at different points of the
Occident, according to season. Bearings taken on each of the horizons
define the extreme limits that mark the two Orients and Occidents, and
between these there are points marked off throughout the year. The
phenomenon described here is rather commonplace, but what mainly deserves
attention in this chapter are the other. topics dealt with, where the
description of astronomical phenomena referred to in the Quran is in
keeping with modern data.
|
But the "astrophysical phenomena" you are refering to here is that night
follows day, right?
| Quote: |
D. EVOLUTION OF THE HEAVENS
Having called modern concepts on the formation of the Universe to mind,
reference was made to the evolution that took place, starting with primary
nebula through to the formation of galaxies, stars and (for the solar
system) the appearance of planets beginning with the Sun at a certain
stage of its evolution. Modern data lead us to believe that in the solar
system, and more generally in the Universe itself, this evolution is still
continuing.
How can anybody who is aware of these ideas fail to make a comparison with
certain statements found in the Quran in which the manifestations of
divine Omnipotence are referred to.
The Quran reminds us several times that: "(God) subjected the sun and the
moon: each one runs its course to an appointed term."
This sentence is to be found in sura 13, verse 2. sura 31, verse 29; sura
35, verse 13 and sura 39, verse 5.
In addition to this, the idea of a settled place is associated with the
concept of a destination place in sura 36, verse 38: "The Sun runs its
course to a settled place. This is the decree of the All Mighty, the Full
of Knowledge."
'Settled place' is the translation of the word mustaqarr and there can be
no doubt that the idea of an exact place is attached to it.
How do these statements fare when compared with data established by modern
science?
The Quran gives an end to the Sun for its evolution and a destination
place. It also provides the Moon with a settled place. To understand the
possible meanings of these statements, we must remember what modern
knowledge has to say about the evolution of the stars in general and the
Sun in particular, and (by extension) the celestial bodies that
automatically followed its movement through space, among them the Moon.
The Sun is a star that is roughly 4½ billion years old, according to
experts in astrophysics. It is possible to distinguish a stage in its
evolution, as one can for all the stars. At present, the Sun is at an
early stage, characterized by the transformation of hydrogen atoms into
helium atoms. Theoretically, this present stage should last another 5½
billion years according to calculations that allow a total of 10 billion
years for the duration of the primary stage in a star of this kind. It has
already been shown, in the case of these other stars, that this stage
gives way to a second period characterized by the completion of the
transformation of hydrogen into helium, with the resulting expansion of
its external layers and the cooling of the Sun. In the final stage, its
light is greatly diminished and density considerably increased; this is to
be observed in the type of star known as a 'white dwarf'.
The above dates are only of interest in as far as they give a rough
estimate of the time factor involved, what is worth remembering and is
really the main point of the above, is the notion of an evolution. Modern
data allow us to predict that, in a few billion years, the conditions
prevailing in the solar system will not be the same as they are today.
Like other stars whose transformations have been recorded until they
reached their final stage, it is possible to predict an end to the Sun.
The second verse quoted above (sur'a 36, verse 3 referred to the Sun
running its course towards a place of its own.
Modern astronomy has been able to locate it exactly and has even given it
a name, the Solar. Apex: the solar. system is indeed evolving in space
towards a point situated in the Constellation of Hercules (alpha lyrae)
whose exact location is firmly established; it is moving at a speed
already ascertained at something in the region of 12 miles per. second.
All these astronomical data deserve to be mentioned in relation to the two
verses from the Quran, since it is possible to state that they appear to
agree perfectly with modern scientific data.
|
That data being that the Sun and the Moon exist, right? There's nothing in
the Koran about burning hydrogen fuel to make helium, or the earth being 5.5
billion years old, or any of that, right?
| Quote: |
The Expansion of the Universe
The expansion of the Universe is the most imposing discovery of modern
science. Today it is a firmly established concept and the only debate
centres around the way this is taking place.
It was first suggested by the general theory of relativity and is backed
up by physics in the examination of the galactic spectrum; the regular
movement towards the red section of their spectrum may be explained by the
distancing of one galaxy from another. Thus the size of the Universe is
probably constantly increasing and this increase will become bigger the
further away the galaxies are from us. The speeds at which these celestial
bodies are moving may, in the course of this perpetual expansion, go from
fractions of the speed of light to speeds faster than this.
The following verse of the Qur' an (sura 51, verse 47) where God is
speaking, may perhaps be compared with modern ideas:
"The heaven, We have built it with power. Verily. We are expanding it."
'Heaven' is the translation of the word sama' and this is exactly the
extra-terrestrial world that is meant.
'We are expanding it' is the translation of the plural present participle
musi'una of the verb ausa'a meaning 'to make wider, more spacious, to
extend, to expand'.
Some translators who were unable to grasp the meaning of the latter
provide translations that appear to me to be mistaken, e.g. "we give
generously" (R. Blachère). Others sense the meaning, but are afraid to
commit themselves: Hamidullah in his translation of the Quran talks of the
widening of the heavens and space, but he includes a question mark.
Finally, there are those who arm themselves with authorized scientific
opinion in their commentaries and give the meaning stated here. This is
true in the case of the Muntakab, a book of commentaries edited by the
Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Cairo. It refers to the expansion of
the Universe in totally unambiguous terms.
|
So the Koran says that the "heavens give generously", or something, and so
maybe that's somehow like the expanding Universe theory, right?
The Koran doesn't mention anything about the speed of light forming an event
horizon, though does it?
Sorry. Gave up reading. You are an idiot to believe and post this stuff. Go
read Nostradamus. He seems to have better prophesying skills than Mohammad
ever did. |
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